Here I am finding my way through uncharted waters.

good idea, bad idea

Taking a nod from something I do on my other blog … here are the things I loved about our camping trip, and the few things that I very much did not.

Loving

Time spent with friends. We go to know each other better and really enjoyed hanging out without a bunch of other distractions.

Good food. Like Natalie says, everything tastes better when you are camping!

Beautiful scenery. God created a wonderful world for us to enjoy, and we were up in the mountains with gorgeous views, even at night due to the mostly full moon and stars.

While we had some tense moments, Stephan really did a great job listening to us and staying close by. He’s getting to be such a big boy.

I remembered my Tylenol PM and took my iPod, so I got some sleep (though it had to be in the car).

A willing hubby. This is probably the biggest thing for me. I know he didn’t really want to go, but was willing to give it a try because I was excited about it.

Loathing

This is sort of both I guess. We were very thankful to have some borrowed gear, a tent and an air mattress and sleeping bag … however, somehow, wires got crossed and we’d thought it was an 8-person tent and a queen sized air mattress. When we got the tent up we realized it was significantly smaller but workable. The mattress though was a twin. No way Andy and I were going to fit on that sucker. The sleeping bag wasn’t as big as we’d thought either, and we didn’t bring any extra blankets or our other camprest mat.

Our friends were awesome and let us use their kids’ queen mattress, and they used our twin, but we didn’t have extra blankets or another sleeping bag, and it was super cold (and that mattress kept leaking air). We were freezing. Stephan was ok, because he had his own bag and camprest. Our friends did come by and give us a few extra blankets they had in their car and suggested we sleep with hoodies. That’s when I remembered I had my hooded down jacket in the car!

Stephan woke up a few times screaming and I ended up sleeping in the car while he snuggled daddie. At least we all got a few hours of sleep.

You pee A LOT while preggo and it’s not so fun to have to go squat in the woods or walk to a smelly outdoor potty. Really unfun when it’s nighttime and cold and you want to be sleeping.

Stephan woke up just before 6am, not getting much sleep.

My car died while we were up there. Not entirely unexpected, but we didn’t have time to replace the battery before we left. At least we have cables in the back of the car!

While my loathe list seems quite long, we really did have a lot of fun and enjoyed the outdoors. We also learned some about what we want in our own equipment next time we go camping, and what we’d like in a campsite/ground. Really, the only thing we thought sucked was the whole going-to-sleep-nighttime part, the rest was great. Andy has even said that he’d be willing to go again, which is HUGE! Next time, we’ll do the sleeping thing a bit differently (and remember lots of extra blankets just in case), but at least this time we learned how to do things better next time! You live, you learn right?

I’m a bit bummed we weren’t able to stay up there tonight too, but I did not want a repeat of the night before and knew I needed my rest, we all do. I also feel bad about leaving our friends up there though they are seasoned campers and will enjoy the rest of their time up there.

One last thing. Last night, we were chilly and tired and crabby, but I prayed for us and then Stephan prayed after me … “Dear God, thank you for camping … Amen.” That was so sweet. He really had fun, and did not want to come home. He’s still asking where our friends are knowing we left them up there.

We’ll just have to go again, though probably not for a year or two with the baby coming.

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My husband Andrew and I have been married for fourteen years and love living in Colorado! Eight years ago I became a mommie to an awesome little boy and four years ago to my precious little girl. The past few years have been a whirlwind.